The Young and the Restless

The Adopted Family

They put on this really cute play that they had been working on all week, complete with a program, props and costumes. Totally cute. Doesn't it look like my kids fit perfectly into their family?

We finally got back to Provo around midnight and I couldn't wait to see the kids. I was trying to be so quiet and not wake anybody up as I snuck into the girl's room first. That didn't go over too well since their dog sleeps in there and went crazy because he thought we were intruders. I took advantage of Kylie being awake and begged her to come snuggle with me in bed, but she wasn't interested, she would rather sleep with her cousins, oh well. I spied on Jayden and Maddox and couldn't wait to hold them and smother them with hugs the next morning. Even though we weren't gone that long, I swear they all grew. Atleast their heads did. Their heads always seem bigger when I haven't seen them in a while. And Maddox got more hair. After having so many miles between us, it was a good feeling to have our family back together again (unfortunately that good feeling ended 5 minutes after we got in the car the next day and everyone was fighting and crying, but it was nice while it lasted). I seriously can not thank Jason's sister, Andrea and her family enough for watching our kids while we were gone. We thought it would be fun to do a swap so we watched their kids last year for like 5 days while they went on a cruise and then they watched our kids this time. For like two weeks. With a newborn. We are so mean. The kids had so much fun playing with their cousins and Andrea was nice to entertain them while her kids were still in school by going to the library, doing crafts, going to lunch, playing outside and all sorts of other fun things. The good news is that they were finally able to get Jayden to eat all his food (and he's still keeping it up, yay!) and the bad news is that now my kids have realized what things "real families" are supposed to do and are constantly pointing out everything we are doing wrong. Thanks Andrea for setting the bar extremely high! Apparently Jason needs to cook breakfast every morning (no more cold cereal), we need to hold hands during family prayer, we need to wake up at 6 AM to do family scripture and prayer, we need to have a reverent couch during FHE, they need to have quiet time everyday, Jason needs to work from home so that he can help me out, if they don't eat all their dinner then they have to eat it for breakfast the next morning, we need to give them a weekly allowance and keep a chart with smiley faces if they do all their chores, they need to have more chores....and the list goes on. They really are a great family and I don't think I could keep up, but thanks for being such great examples and temporarily adopting our kids! Maybe you'll be recovered enough in another 5 years so we can do it again :)